Covenant University Hosts 6th IEEE International Conference On Adaptive Science And Technology (ICAST)

A cross section of participants during the keynote address

The foremost Private University in Nigeria, Covenant University, was agog with activities yesterday, at the opening ceremony of the 6th IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineer Inc.) International Conference on Adaptive Science and Technology. The event, which commenced at 9am on October 29, 2014, attracted both local and international participants.

In his opening remarks, the Vice-Chancellor of Covenant University, Professor Charles Korede Ayo, appreciated the organizing committee of the conference, and stated that the essence of networking, which that kind of event enabled, is to foster collaborations on related issues.

The Vice-Chancellor further stated, “Looking at the vision of our University to be among the ten best Universities in the world within ten years, it is obvious that we need as much collaborations as we can get, and one of them is in the area of Community Impact projects. And that entails meeting the needs of the people at the grassroots level.”

While making his remarks, the Chairman of the Local Organizing Committee (LOC) of the conference, Professor Sanjay Misra stated, “Covenant University is currently among the most prestigious institutions of higher education in Nigeria and offers an excellent setting for the conference. Founded in 2002, the University is ranked the best performing University by the National Universities Commission, Nigeria.”

Professor Misra also appreciated the two special guest speakers for the event, and expressed the expectation that the Conference and Proceedings would open all participants up to new vistas of discovery and knowledge.

In her remarks, the Chair of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineer Inc. (IEEE) Nigeria Section, Engr. Professor (Mrs.) Gloria Chukwudebe, stated that the primary mission of IEEE was to foster innovation and technological excellence for the benefit of humanity.

Professor Chukwudebe, who is also a professor of Engineering at the Federal University of Science and Technology (FUTO), stated, “The key objective of this conference is to bring together industry and academia to discuss and examine emerging and sustainable technologies in ICT: Information Security, Satellite Communications, Smart Utility Systems, Long Term Evolution Networking, M-Technologies, Radio Communications, Cloud Computing, etc.”

The keynote speaker of the event, Professor Osvaldo Gervasi from the University of Perugia, Italy, while making his presentation titled, ‘May Technology Strengthen Tele-Rehabilitation Processes?’ stated, “We present some innovative approaches adopted in our Lab to improve the communication of ALS patients and to monitor and reinforce the tele-rehabilitation practices of patients with severe impairment due to traumatic brain injury and stroke.”

According to Professor Gervasi’s in his presentation, “Nu!RehaVR, is a series of virtual environments designed to enable the patient to perform rehabilitation exercises mimicking real contexts in which the patients cannot act: dangerous situations or contexts requiring some capabilities the patient do not have. In the virtual environment the patient has the possibility of facilitate the recovering of the damaged neural functions, performing ad-hoc designed exercises.”

On the other hand, the Special Guest for the conference, Dr. Richard Wallace, a faculty of the Cork Constraint Computation Centre, University College Cork, gave his speech on the second day of the conference.

In his speech, titled, ‘The Ineluctable Entanglement of Human and Artificial Intelligence,’ Dr. Wallace stated, “The present talk builds upon a simple observation. This is that any artifact that can be deemed to act intelligently has been built to do so by human beings using their own knowledge. Strangely enough, this ‘ineluctable entanglement’ between artificial intelligence (AI) and human intelligence has not been a major focus of inquiry within the field of AI. The purpose of the present talk is to start to redress this situation.”

The first and second day of the conference witnessed fourteen (14) breakout sessions altogether, which included Algorithms, Web Engineering, Control Systems, Cloud Computing, Artificial Intelligence/Security, Power, Distributed Computing, Digital Communication, Mobile Computing, Software Engineering and so on.

An interactive dinner was held on Thursday, October 30, 2014, at the Church Restaurant in Canaan Land Ota, to formerly round off the event, followed by a Campus Tour on Friday, October 31, 2014, before the departure of participants.